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A key element in evaluating and designing strategies for management of biodiversity and other ecosystem services is the application of environmental economics and decision theory.

This theme aims to understand and quantify the relations between the human environment and the bio-physical environment of nature areas in order to provide a holistic framework for achieving sustainable outcomes. We conduct research on planning approaches which facilitates decision making and management in consideration of the natural environmental as well as social, political, economic, and governance factors.

The main research questions are:

What are the impacts of forest and nature management on ecosystems and the provision of ecosystem services?

What are the benefits and costs related to the state, impact and response with respect to natural resources and environmental services?

How can we balance utilisation and conservation of natural resources and environmental services in a changing world and which decision support tools can be applied to handle this?

Research projects

The project aims at improving the methods for valuation of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services in the context of uncertainty and climate change. Additionally, the project aims at improving methods for decision-making under uncertainty. The project brings together approaches from ecological and environmental economics and the modelling of ecosystem services.

Project leader:

Niels Strange

CMEC researchers:

Bo Jellesmark Thorsen ,

Thomas Hedemark Lundhede ,

Jette Bredahl Jacobsen ,

Carsten Rahbek

In this project we investigate past and current adaptation behaviours of households; the motivations of households to adapt to future climate risks; preferences for various potential adaptation measures of households; and map adaptation opportunities. We expect empirical evidence of adaptation choices to contribute to the development of guidelines for future adaption strategies in terms of targeting and policy designs.

Project leader:

Yuan Zheng

CMEC researchers:

Bo Jellesmark Thorsen , Niels Strange

By gathering information on the illegal, commercial bushmeat markets in Tanzania, we aim to improve regulation for sustainability and biodiversity conservation by design of economic instruments. The project involves a commodity chain analysis in three markets to assess the distribution of power and profit between market actors (hunters, traders etc.) and determine the structure, functioning and optimal regulation of these markets.

Project leader:

Martin Reinhardt Nielsen

CMEC researchers:

Niels Strange , Bo Jellesmark Thorsen , Jette Bredahl Jacobsen

The project TRans-national EUropean Ecosystem VALUEs of grasslands (TREUEVALUE) investigates how the values attributed to biodiversity and ecosystem service provision trade-off against one another. Based on current evidence, it is unlikely that there are many win-win scenarios where both ecosystem service provision and biodiversity conservation can be maximised. Furthermore, the project investigates the potential implications for policy implementation.

Project leaders:

Martin Dallimer,

Bo Jellesmark Thorsen

With a main focus on choice experiment, we use stated preference methods to valuate the socio-economic benefits of conservation policies and characteristics. Secondly we investigate people's perceptions on biodiversity and apply the results in a spatially systematic conservation planning framework at different geographical scales.

Project leader:

Fatemeh Bakhtiari

CMEC researchers:

Jette Bredahl Jacobsen ,

Niels Strange ,

Thomas Hedemark Lundhede

This project combines policy design with our increasing understanding of landowner motivation for nature conservation and environmental management. Since private landowners often owns large share of the land area they are important agents in implementing nature conservation.

Project leader:

Stine Wamberg Broch

CMEC researchers:

Niels Strange

The aim of this project is to investigate the implication of policy initiatives implemented to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services. It makes use of econometric modelling to elicit information on questions such as: What are the drivers of land-use changes? How do policies impact these - and how does this affect the ability of nature to deliver environmental goods? Do policies such as e.g. Payments for Environmental Services deliver biodiversity and ecosystem protection and to what level? And what are the linkages between these policies and socioeconomics parameters?